Joshua 2:2-6

2:2 The king of Jericho received this report: “Note well! ¹  Israelite men have come here tonight ²  to spy on the land.” 2:3 So the king of Jericho sent this order to Rahab: ³  “Turn over ⁴  the men who came to you ⁵  – the ones who came to your house ⁶  – for they have come to spy on the whole land!” 2:4 But the woman hid the two men ⁷  and replied, “Yes, these men were clients of mine, ⁸  but I didn’t know where they came from. 2:5 When it was time to shut the city gate for the night, the men left. ⁹  I don’t know where they were heading. Chase after them quickly, for you have time to catch them!” 2:6 (Now she had taken them up to the roof and had hidden them in the stalks of flax she had spread out ¹⁰  on the roof.)

¹ tn Or “look.”

² tn Heb “men have come here tonight from the sons of Israel.”

³ tn Heb “and the king of Jericho sent to Rahab, saying.”

⁴ tn Heb “bring out.”

⁵ tn The idiom “come to” (בוֹא אֶל, bo’ ’el) probably has sexual connotations here, as it often does elsewhere when a man “comes to” a woman. If so, the phrase could be translated “your clients.” The instructions reflect Rahab’s perspective as to the identity of the men.

⁶ tn The words “the ones who came to your house” (Heb “who came to your house”) may be a euphemistic scribal addition designed to blur the sexual connotation of the preceding words.

⁵ tn Heb “The woman took the two men and hid him.” The third masculine singular pronominal suffix on “hid” has to be a scribal error (see GKC §135.p).

⁶ tn Heb “the men came to me.” See the note on this phrase in v. 3.

⁷ tn Heb “And the gate was to be shut in the darkness and the men went out.”

⁹ tn Heb “arranged in rows by her.”